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Sonic Free Riders
|EU|November 10, 2010|AUS|November 18, 2010|JP|November 20, 2010}} |genre = Racing |modes = Single-player, multiplayer |platforms = Xbox 360 }}Sonic Free Riders is a motion controlled racing video game developed by Sonic Team, Vicarious Visions and Toys for Bob and published by Sega and Activision for the Xbox 360. The game requires the use of Microsoft's Kinect peripheral, releasing as a launch title for it in November 2010. It was released as a Kinect launch title. Sonic Free Riders is the seventh racing game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. This game is the third chapter of the Sonic Riders series. It is a direct sequel to Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity. The game's story centers on the series' main antagonist Doctor Eggman announcing a second world grand prix. Inviting Sonic the Hedgehog Sr along with the Babylon Rogues and other characters in the series, Eggman plans to gather data from the riders to program into his robots. The game received mixed reviews from critics, with praise going towards its content and multiplayer options, but criticism for its controls. Gameplay Sonic Free Riders is a racing game in which the player controls characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. The game is controlled by using the player's body to navigate their chosen character through the course. Actions include bending their body to steer, performing kicking motions to increase speed and jumping to perform tricks which earn more boost. The player has the ability to ride bikes, controlled by steering motions. By collecting enough rings, players can increase their level during each race, which enhances their attributes. There are several power-ups and weapons which each require specific motion actions to activate, such as a missile which is thrown like a football or a boost that is activated by shaking a soda can. As before, characters are divided into Speed, Flight, and Power classes. Players can equip special attributes to their Gear, such as improved cornering or the ability to break through barriers, which can be changed by switching the riding stance. Players can also perform special moves if lacking in races. The game's main single player campaign is the Grand Prix mode, where players select from one of several teams of characters to play through the story. Along with Time Attack and Free Race modes, Sonic Free Riders also features a few multiplayer modes that can be played co-operatively. Tag Mode allows two players to race together, required synchronised coordination to perform combined tricks, while Relay mode, playable with up to 4 players, requires teammates to swap places after each lap. The local multiplayer supports up to two active players while online player multiplayer features one active player per console for up to 8 players. The game also supports voice recognition, allowing people to navigate menus using their voice. Plot The story takes place after the events of Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, moving away from the path system of previous Riders games in favor of a more arcade-like set-up. Replacing CGI cutscenes with quick static images, and changing character interactions to quick dialogue exchanges between teams. Doctor Eggman, disguising himself as a king, announces another World Grand Prix, and promises that the winners would receive cash and treasure. This time, he puts four teams into the race instead of two, to prove who is the best. However, his true motive is to gather data from all the players to program into his E-10000G robots. By the time the player characters complete their race, Eggman's scheme is eventually revealed. However, after defeating Eggman, the player characters discover that Metal Sonic hijacked Eggman's plan, and took all the data for himself, in another attempt to prove himself far more superior than the real Sonic Sr. Metal Sonic challenges the real Sonic Sr to a final race, but loses and is forced to flee only to be destroyed along with all the data by Terra, Aqua, Sonic Jr, Ignitus, Cyril, Terrador and Cynder. Despite the fact that Eggman ripped them all off just before entering the early retirement, everyone has enjoyed themselves (except Shadow and Rouge), and according to them, that is what matters. Audio This is one of the first games where all the previous 4Kids and Warner Bros. voice actors have been replaced with new voice actors such as Aaron Eckhart, Kate Higgins, Travis Willingham, Cindy Robinson, John Goodman, Hector Elizondo, Mary Elizaneth Winstead, Michelle Ruff, Kirk Thornton, Karen Strassman, Derek Stephen Prince, Wally Wingert, Whoopi Goldberg, Quinton Flynn, Laura Bailey, Cassandra Morris, Grant George, Marcella Lentz-Pope, Fred Tatasciore, Adetokumboh M'Cormack, Edward Bosco, Frank Welker and more. Like in Sonic Colors, most of the voices from 4Kids and Warner Bros. were replaced, with only Roger Craig Smith and Adam Wylie remaining in the cast continuing his roles as Cyril and Sparx. Although both voice language tracks are included in the game disc, there is not a proper option to switch them in any regional version. The game sets both the text and voice language by default according to the console settings language, so the only way to change it is by changing the Xbox Dashboard language settings. The game's soundtrack score was written and composed by Mark Mothersbaugh, Junkie XL, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Hildur Guðnadóttir which incorporating Graeme Revell's themes from the first game. Later the game's theme song, "Free" which were being written by Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale, Bob Mothersbaugh and Glenn Slater and performed by Jacky Cheung and Avenged Sevenfold. The songs of Devo were later used for the game. Reception The game received a Metacritic score of 47/100. IGN gave the game a score of 7.5, calling it a strong launch title for Kinect, although criticizing the motion controls stating that they "make it hard to just jump into the game". Official Xbox Magazine also gave it 7.5, praising the wealth of content and multiplayer options while criticizing occasional unresponsiveness in the controls. GameTrailers gave the game a score of 4.5, panning cumbersome controls that tax the body. Joystiq gave the game 1/5 stars, calling it "the equivalent of patting your head while rubbing your stomach while riding a unicycle." Brian Crecente of Kotaku also reviewed it negatively, calling it "the most broken of the Kinect titles I've played." Kotaku's Crecente later reported that the responsiveness of the controls seemed to differ between persons, with fellow reviewer Stephen Totilo saying the controls worked fine for him. References External links *Official website Category:2010 video games Category:Kinect games Category:Racing video games Category:Sonic the Hedgehog video games Category:Xbox 360 games Category:Xbox 360-only games Category:Video games developed in Japan Category:Multiplayer and single-player video games Category:Activision games Category:Vicarious Visions games Category:Toys for Bob games Category:Films directed by Steven Spielberg Category:Films directed by Joe Johnston Category:Films produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller Category:Films produced by Zack Snyder Category:Films produced by Deborah Snyder Category:Video games with screenplays by Jonathan Goldstein Category:Video games with screenplays by John Francis Daley Category:Video games with screenplays by Chris Terrio Category:Video games with screenplays by Irene Mecchi Category:Video games scored by Mark Mothersbaugh Category:Video games set in Miami Category:Video games set in Florida Category:Video games set in New York City Category:Video games set in the United States Category:Video games set in Russia Category:Video games set in Thailand Category:Video games set in Texas Category:Video games set in London Category:Video games set in the United Kingdom Category:Video games set in California Category:Video games set in San Francisco Category:Video games set in the future Category:Video games set in the 21st century Category:Video games scored by Jóhann Jóhannsson Category:Video games scored by Hildur Guðnadóttir Category:Video games scored by Junkie XL Category:Musicals by Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale Category:Musicals by Mark Mothersbaugh and Bob Mothersbaugh